Ways to shop for Fixed/SS parts (suggestions)

I'm interested in what methods you use to find Fixed Gear parts.
(outside of eBay and Craiglist)

I've found http://www.qBike.com/ to be pretty good as far as searching functionality- you can search multiple vendors for a product and sort by price.

My friend just bought several components 'from' Amazon.com- mainly because he could shop and pay for everything in one place. He bought Bulletproof cranks, a chain and some other items. (NashBar and other stores feed their products unto Amazon's website.)

i have to chime in with the Support Your Local Bike Shop pitch. all the online buying i've done doesn't really compare to the satisfaction of walking in to a shop, asking a familiar face for some advice, frowning at bike parts and talking about pros and cons, and then asking for a favor and having them be happy to oblige because you're a return customer. or being able to walk in, put my bike up on the stand, and use their tools.

good customers get benefits. go the extra mile for a bike shop and a bike shop will go the extra mile for you.

that said, yes, there are a number of good places on the internet to get parts.

ive found that some of the guys working at my local shops are elitest *******s

then find a different shop. I've ran into that a few times, but probably 80% of the people at the various LBS i've been to are considerate and helpful, and probably half of them have done minor work at no charge or given me advice and tips they didn't have to.

then find a different shop. I've ran into that a few times, but probably 80% of the people at the various LBS i've been to are considerate and helpful, and probably half of them have done minor work at no charge or given me advice and tips they didn't have to.

The Bicycle Business in Sacramento is both my LBS and OBS. they even have some track frames in stock hanging from the ceiling. as needed I'll either order online, call, or walk-in. Knowledgeable, and good to work with.

i have to chime in with the Support Your Local Bike Shop pitch. all the online buying i've done doesn't really compare to the satisfaction of walking in to a shop, asking a familiar face for some advice, frowning at bike parts and talking about pros and cons, and then asking for a favor and having them be happy to oblige because you're a return customer. or being able to walk in, put my bike up on the stand, and use their tools.

good customers get benefits. go the extra mile for a bike shop and a bike shop will go the extra mile for you.

that said, yes, there are a number of good places on the internet to get parts.

I'll be the one to chime in with the old oh-yeah-well-you've-never-been-to-a-bike-shop-here bit. Some of the worst bike advice I've ever gotten came from "reputable" shops and lifetime mechanics.

That said, since I've been sniffing fixed gear drainpipes for several years here now, two shops I frequent now carry SRAM singspeed chains, shimano bmx cogs, miche, da and no name cogs, Surly frames and tensioners, and what did I see but a shiny chrome pista at one store and a Cannondale track bike in the other. 4 or 5 years too late for me, but even if you know they're not going to have it, if you go in and ask and know exactly what you want/need, and a half a dozen other people do in a short time span, your local shop that has nothing fixed/ss specific will get hip to the idea that you're going to spend that dough, so it might as well be there.

And it's satisfying to stop in at a shop that laughed at you when you built a singlespeed and then fainted when you fixed a Kona Smoke to see a fleet of ss-converted Smokes locked up in front the next year.

I love my LBS. The owner is some kind of ex racer or something. They always treat me right and have pricing to compete with the internet. When you need old stuff he knows the swap meets to go to or the people to call. The big supply houses are not the ones you can turn to on Saturday morning when your in a pinch.

The Bicycle Business in Sacramento is both my LBS and OBS. they even have some track frames in stock hanging from the ceiling. as needed I'll either order online, call, or walk-in. Knowledgeable, and good to work with.

QBike - Fixie listings

Hey there,

Just saw this thread and was glad to see QBike mentioned. I run the QBike
site, and I'm always trying to add new sites so that I get the best coverage
for all sorts of biking. I'll be the first to admit, my main emphasis has been
on road and mtb riding for quite a while, and then some focus on triathlon
and women's gear. I've not put the work in on fixies, tandems, or BMX that
I probably should. So thanks for your comments.

What are some of the best sites you'd like to see added to QBike? Let me
know and I'll get them listed.

I finally figured out that having thumbnail images was a good thing, so I added
those over the winter. Took a lot of work! And keeping all the images up to
date is tough, too. Also, I just started a project where I'm trying to group
products so that it's easier to price compare - but doing this without product
SKUs or UPCs or such is a tough nut to crack. Anyhow, you can see some of
these changes on QBike when you're using it.

Any feedback on ways to make the site better, I'm open to it. I pretty much
designed the site in 1998 just so that I could quicky find where to buy the
saddles, road shoes, handlebars, and stems I needed when I was getting more
into biking, but I wasn't thinking about how to make it useful for anyone else
necessarily! So let me know what I should do to make finding stuff you're
looking for easier and faster and better.